Mexican drug cartels take over Chiapas
— From La Trinitaria
Monday, March 25, four brothers were driving on the Pan-American Highway in a Jeep pickup truck. At kilometer 210, in the village of La Campana, which is part of the municipality of La Trinitaria, men prevented them from continuing towards the town of Frontera Comalapa, where they wanted to erect an altar in memory of their mother, who died two days ago previously. Earlier in the morning, a clash had taken place between two criminal organizations. Two people were killed, another injured, and several cars and trucks burned.
This new episode in the war between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has put their “social bases” on the border with the Guatemala. Members of the former set up blockades on the Pan-American Highway and on illegal crossings that cross the border. Those of the second barricaded themselves in their stronghold, Frontera Comalapa.
Five days later, residents of the town reported that they no longer had gasoline for their vehicles or gas for cooking, and that vegetables, grains, meat and other foodstuffs were becoming increasingly scarce. increasingly rare in markets and stores. Public transport was no longer provided.
Since 2021, a large part of the state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala, has fallen prey to a “unrecognized armed conflict between criminal organizations competing for control of the territory (…) as well as the very lives of the inhabitants”, points out a report published on April 9 by a collective of NGOs from defense of human rights.
Neither figures nor official reports
At the beginning of 2021, the inhabitants of this part of Chiapas saw the first arrivals monster trucks, vehicles covered with homemade armor. The CJNG had brought them from Guatemala through clandestine channels to confront its rival, the Sinaloa cartel. Traffickers erected walls and barricades in villages, dug trenches and strung chains to prevent their CJNG enemies from passing through. The ha
